The Ultimate Question
by ablondeinaunionjack
Summary: For Arthur and Fenchurch, returning to one of the multiple Earths seems far too tame. So what to do next? One night whilst under the influence of several Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters , Ford and Arthur come up with a plan...Everything belongs to Mr. Adams
1. Chapter 1

**This chapter is dedicated to Colourful-Mess for beta-reading it. **

The Ultimate Question  
Chapter 1

"Arthur."  
"Mm?"  
"Arthur."  
Arthur Dent opened his eyes and blearily regarded the ceiling. It was a particularly nice white for a ceiling; nice and peaceful, he thought. He then remembered why he had woken up, and looked across at Fenchurch, who was dressing. This was enough to make his eyes open fully and he pushed himself into a sitting position.  
"What?" he asked.  
"Ford wants to see you on the bridge."  
"Oh God. What now?"  
"He says he has this `really froody idea' that he wants to share with you," replied Fenchurch, brushing her hair. "Apparently it's important."  
"Well, so's my lie-in," declared Arthur, lying back down.  
It was no good; the ceiling was just the wrong shade of white now. He turned to Fenchurch.  
"Fenchurch..."  
"Yes?"  
"Is it just me or has the ceiling changed colour?" he asked suspiciously.  
"For your own comfort and convenience, your Sirius Cybernetics Adaptive Colour Scheme has altered your ceiling colour from `Cloud' to `Picket Fence'" announced an irritatingly chirpy voice from above Arthur's head.  
"Well, change it back again, will you?"  
"Certainly."  
"In fact, no. I'll go and see what Ford thinks is froody enough to disturb my lie-in. And it better be damned good."  
Arthur got out of bed and got dressed. He had finally bought a smart new suit form the Arkumeglon Superstore on Sirius 5 (Now selling new Sirius Cybernetics People Personality Robots! Get yours instore today!) but had been unable to get rid of his faithful old dressing gown, which was now moldering quietly at the bottom of his blue holdall.  
Fenchurch smiled and kissed him on the forehead. Tired of working at Milliway's, she had joined Arthur on the Heart of Gold for a holiday which, at the moment, was rather uneventful.  
Arthur brushed his teeth and went onto the bridge. An excited-looking Ford was standing at the monitor along with a bored Trillian and a hungover Zaphod, neither of them particularly fun to be with.  
"Arthur! You took your time!" said Ford loudly.  
Zaphod winced.  
"Hey, Ford, can you keep it down? I've got the mother and father of a pair of headaches, and they don't want to be disturbed" he replied hoarsely.  
Trillian rolled her eyes. Zaphod was getting beyond a joke now. Sometimes she wondered whether she had made the right decision by abandoning her career as a roving reporter to stay with him. It was better for Random, of course, but it did have a huge drawback, which was the ex-President of the Universe and his Trigannic Pew sized ego. What he needed was a purpose in life, she thought bitterly. Other than getting completely and utterly bombed, that is.  
"I was having a lie-in, like I always do on a Saturday" responded Arthur acidly. "And then the ceiling decided to change colour and I found that I couldn't."  
"Well, never mind that now. Look at this."  
Arthur glanced at the monitor, which was showing a horrifyingly sunny planet.  
"What's this?" he asked.  
"That" replied Ford. "That is Megalamore. White beaches, blue sea, just the way you like it. And, this is the most important bit, lots of girls and alcohol. So, whaddya say?"  
"Oh, I don't know, Ford" sighed Arthur. "We always go to places like that and all that happens is we get drunk for a few days, get thrown out of every bar in the city and then when we get back onboard, Zaphod gets a splitting headache -"  
"I think it's a migraine now, monkey man" interjected Zaphod weakly.  
"All right then, _migraine_, and we all have excruciating hangovers which last longer than the time we spent on the planet! It just seems so..."  
"Fun? Hoopy? Mind-bogglingly exciting?" suggested Ford.  
"Futile," decided Arthur.  
Ford sagged.  
"What do you think we should do then?"  
"Oh, I don't know. How about we tackle the Ultimate Question again?" proposed Arthur.  
"We know that won't work" replied Ford.  
"Well for goodness sake do something," said Trillian. "Random is bored out of her mind."  
Trillian went back to her cabin, leaving the men to sort it out.  
"I vote we go to Megalamore," declared Ford.  
"Count me out. I think I'm going to curl up in a corner somewhere," whimpered Zaphod, heading off after Trillian.  
"Arthur?"  
"Oh...all right then."  
Ford grinned.  
"Let's get going then. Computer?"  
A screen lit up and whirred into life.  
"This is Eddie, your shipboard computer. How can I help you guys?"  
"Bring us into orbit around Megalamore," ordered Ford.  
"Right on, guys."  
The ship lurched forward towards the planet.  
"Would you like some authentic Megalamore beach ware?" offered Eddie.  
"What?" said Arthur.  
"Oh, don't take any notice of it. Sirius Cybernetics have updated all of their computers so that they try and sell things every so often. Just don't say yes to him" advised Ford.  
Arthur nodded.  
"Well, how about some cheery beach music? For free?" continued Eddie.  
Ford shrugged at Arthur.  
"All right then" he said, and the sound system launched into bright steel drum music.  
"That sounds just like Jamaican music! You know, Jamaica? On Earth. I was rather fond of it," declared Arthur.  
"Really?" replied Ford, turning away from the monitor.  
"Oh, yes. I once went to a very nice party, and..."  
"And?"  
"Oh, never mind. What does the Guide say about this place?"  
"Have a look."  
Ford threw the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Arthur, who dropped it. Picking it up, he typed in 'Megalamore' and scrolled down the page until he found an entry:

**Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Entry 2, 738, 691 **

_Megalamore is a spectacularly beautiful and incredibly hoopy destination, containing some of the best cocktail bars in the Flagella-Hencha Star System. It holds some of the biggest and best parties every year including the Anniversary of the Coming of the Incredible Giant Newt, during which the members of the brotherhood try their best to emulate their god. Its beaches and seas are similar to those on the planet Earth, although the sea often changes colour in summer and becomes a rather interesting shade of pinkish-violet. _

"See? I told you it sounded fun!" said Ford.  
Arthur shrugged, unconvinced.  
"Computer! Initialise the launch pods! Destination: Megalamore planet surface."  
"Sure thing guys!" replied Eddie.  
Ford and Arthur went out into the launch pod hold and got into the two smooth slate grey crafts, which took off towards Megalamore.


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter is for Darling Summers.**

Chapter 2

"So, you see that ship out there? That's mine."  
"Sure it is, honey."  
"No, really!"  
Arthur sighed. He'd been watching Ford trying to chat up every female life-form that walked past – with limited success – for around an hour now, and was already getting tired. It was time, he decided, to bring in the big guns.  
"Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster, please," he said to the barman, who grunted and prepared one.  
"Three pounds," it muttered.  
"Put it on my tab."  
"Name?"  
"Beeblebrox."  
It nodded and Arthur took a sip from his reinforced glass.  
"...with the Infinite Improbability drive, I can go almost anywhere, you know that?" continued Ford.  
Arthur absently wondered how much his friend had had to drink.  
"Er, okay, honey."  
The blonde creature he had been talking to moved away, and Arthur joined him at the other end of the bar.  
"It's true!" called Ford after her. "Damn. I was _that_ close."  
Arthur nodded sympathetically.  
"So, what have you been doing?" asked Ford, gulping down a mouthful of clear alcohol which Arthur suspected was Nebulan Star-Juice, the space equivalent of paint stripper.  
"Well, I've been thinking about the Question again," began Arthur tentatively.  
"That old thing? You want my advice? Forget about it. We'll never know that while we know the answer, remember?"  
They lapsed into silence. Ideas began to creep into Arthur's relatively sozzled brain as he took another sip of Gargleblaster. He turned to Ford.  
"Ford, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.  
"Quite possibly, but where are we going to find a guillemot at this time of night?"  
"No, what _I_ meant was...why a guillemot?"  
Ford shrugged.  
"Why not a guillemot?"  
"What could you possibly _do_ with a guillemot?" Arthur paused. "On second thoughts, don't answer that. I don't really want to know." He paused again. "What was I talking about?"  
"Guillemots" answered Ford.  
"No, no, no, before that."  
"Oh! Erm...ideas! You were thinking about something."  
"Oh, yes, of course. Er...do you happen to know what I was thinking about?"  
"Not guillemots, apparently." Ford gulped down another mouthful of Star-Juice. "That we should order some more drinks?"  
"That'll do." Arthur turned to the barman. "Two Gargle-Blasters, please."  
"Six pounds," it replied.  
"On my tab. The name's Beeblebrox."  
Arthur handed one of the drinks to Ford.  
"Beeblebrox. That's Zaphod's name." Ford watched the barman carefully. "Hasn't he noticed that you've got the wrong number of heads?"  
"Apparently not."  
"And arms, for that matter." Ford turned back to his friend. "Oh. How long have you had two heads, then?"  
"What? I haven't got two heads!"  
"Oh." Ford squinted into his drink. "This is good stuff."  
Arthur suddenly straightened up and tried to slap the top of the bar. He missed.  
"I know! The Ultimate Question. You said that we couldn't find it because we know the answer. What if we _didn't_ know the answer?"  
Ford looked dumbly at him.  
"But we do know the answer" he said.  
"Yes. But if we found a, a machine that could get rid of all ourknowledge of the answer, then we're sorted!"  
"Oh. Fair enough. But where are we going to find one of those?" queried Ford.  
"Can't Eddie do it?" suggested Arthur.  
Ford shrugged.  
"I don't know. I do know, however, that there is a very attractive life-form sitting right over there. I shouldn't be long."  
"You've tried to chat her up already. She said no."  
"Did she? Oh. Well, I'm going to go and see if she remembers."  
With that, Ford walked over to an attractive brunette in a silver space suit. With a sigh, Arthur downed what was left of his Gargleblaster and promptly slumped over the bar.

A few hours later he woke up, absently peeled a slice of lemon from his cheek and looked around for Ford.  
There were only a few people left in Club Omega now, and Arthur had been joined by one of them. It was tall with two heads and three arms which, to Arthur's befuzzled mind, seemed oddly familiar.  
"A Galafrean Gin and a Nebulan Star-Juice" ordered the figure.  
"Zaphod?" queried Arthur.  
It turned and showed itself to be a girl, with spiky blonde hair and brown eyes, which, at the moment, were narrowed at the Earthman.  
"Who?" she demanded sharply.  
"I thought you were a friend of mine" explained Arthur nervously.  
"Hang on...do you mean Zaphod Beeblebrox? _The _Zaphod Beeblebrox? As in the disgraced President?" she demanded.  
"Mm" he agreed vaguely. "His ship's up there."  
"Can you take me to him? I've got my own pod, but I have to see him." She paused. "Where are you from? You look...strange."  
"Earth."  
"Earth? That..._hole_?"  
"S'better than Nowwhat," muttered Arthur, trying to wake himself up. "Wait – who are you? Why do you need to see Zaphod?"  
"Mirana" answered the girl, looking as if she was ready to go.  
Arthur stood up, with some difficulty, and walked over to the table where Ford was still trying to chat up the brunette, who was almost asleep.  
"Ford? Are you awake?" asked Arthur.  
"...which is actually one of the froodiest places in the galaxy - what, Arthur?"  
"This girl wants to see Zaphod."  
"Really? That's a first." Ford stood up and stretched. "Who is she?"  
"Mirana Beeblebrox," supplied the girl calmly. "Zaphod's daughter"


	3. Chapter 3

**First of all I would like to apologise for the delay here! I know I've left this a ridiculously long time, but I hope you enjoy it (if you haven't stopped using Fanfiction/given up on this in disgust/emigrated in the time since I updated this…). Thanks to Nimbus Llewelyn for beta-ing.**

"Holy Zarquon singing fish," said Ford, blinking.  
There was a pause.  
"What?" queried Mirana eventually.  
"Oh, never mind," said Arthur, dismissively. "He's drunk."

"How do you know Zaphod is your father?" asked Ford, apparently recovering.  
"Well, when you've got two heads, three arms and, so I've been told, an enormous ego, it's not too hard to work out who the anonymous parent is." Mirana put one of her hands on her hip – the others were still holding her drinks. "So, can you take me to see him?"  
Arthur glanced at Ford, who shrugged, still too drunk to properly understand what was happening.  
"I suppose so," he hazarded.  
"Good." Mirana put one of her glasses down. "Are you ready?"  
Ford sighed and downed the unpleasantly warm dregs of his Gargleblaster. Mirana thrust her other gin at Arthur, who looked slightly bewildered.  
"Drink up," she prompted. "We don't have much time."  
"What are you talking about? We've got plenty of time."  
"_You_ might have, but I'm due back at the Hitch-hiker building in an hour."  
"The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy building?" said Ford. "Where _is_ that now?"  
"It's on Megalamore Beta. I'm the chief foreign correspondent for Betelgeuse and the Pleiades," she answered. "Are you coming?"  
Arthur and Ford reluctantly followed her out of the club into the warm Megalamore night. Judging from the sounds coming from the beach to their left, the Brotherhood of the Incredible Giant Newt were having their annual celebration, and Ford was struck by a sudden desire to convert.  
"I wonder if their parties are open…" he said, watching as a group of girls staggered away from the main party.  
"We don't have any time for that," insisted Mirana.  
"Besides, this is our ship," added Arthur.  
The ship in front of them was a sleek silver craft with elegant fins which practically exuded speed. Mirana raised an eyebrow, looking impressed.  
"Nice ship," she commented.  
"It is, but unfortunately it doesn't belong to us. Those are ours," corrected Ford, nodding to two disappointingly grey spacepods behind the one Mirana had seen.  
"Oh."  
"Well, see you at the _Heart of Gold_," said Arthur cheerily, getting into the closest pod.  
"You're just leaving us?" protested Ford and Mirana simultaneously.  
"Sorry," responded Arthur with a shrug.

He shut the door behind him and – after a few false starts – managed to get the spacepod into gear and up into the sky. Ford swore incoherently and looked longingly back at the club. He could do with another Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster; or failing that, a bottle of Janx Spirit and a comfortable wall to slump against.

"Don't just stand there, _some_ of us have appointments," snapped Mirana, tapping her foot impatiently.

They climbed into the remaining spacepod and – after accidentally putting into reverse and almost crashing into a much larger ship behind them – managed to take off. They didn't say a word to each other on the way to the _Heart of Gold_; Mirana was staring out of the window, obviously wondering what was about to happen and Ford had descended from blissful drunken indifference into a sullen stupor, something which wasn't improved by the prospect of going back to a ship with no girls and sadly depleted stocks of alcohol.

When they landed on the _Heart of Gold_ they disembarked and walked up to the bridge in unbroken silence. Well, almost unbroken.

"It is my pleasure to open for you, and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done," hummed the first door they arrived at.

"Oh, zark off!" swore Ford, kicking at it as he walked through. It made a quiet, contented noise which annoyed him even more.

"You've got talking doors?" said Marina, sounding slightly disbelieving. "That's so…lame. I thought this was supposed to be the cutting edge of space travel!"

Ford glared at her.

"_I_ happen to like them," he lied.

"Then why did you just tell that one to zark off?" challenged Mirana.

"Oh Zarquon," groaned Ford. "I'd rather be with Marvin."

"I very much doubt that," droned a dreary electronic voice. Marvin appeared in the corridor in front of them – he had apparently been waiting for somebody to come along so he could come out and depress them.

"Oh, thank God. Marvin, this is Mirana, Zaphod's daughter. Mirana, this is Marvin the Paranoid Android, he is permanently depressed and will not respond to any attempts to cheer him up at all. Oh good, here we are. Excuse me, I'm just going to go and get slightly drunker in a corner somewhere. Please don't hesitate to leave, Mirana. And Marvin?"

"Yes?" intoned the robot dully.

"I hope you have an utterly miserable day."

"Don't worry, I will."

With that, Ford walked briskly down the passage, verbally abusing several more doors on the way. Marvin looked up at Mirana, eyes glowing dismally.

"Please don't ask me how I'm feeling," he requested.

"I wasn't intending to."

"You were. Everyone does. It's just so depressing. Excuse me, I'm just going to go and stick my head in a bucket of water. Don't mind me. You weren't going to anyway, were you?"

"Well-"

"Life? Don't talk to me about life."

"I didn't-"

But Marvin was already clanking down the corridor to her right, leaving Mirana outside the door to the bridge. Making a rude gesture at the robot's retreating form, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Thank you for making a simple door very happy," declared the door, humming softly to itself as it shut.

Zaphod Beeblebrox swore at it without thinking about why the door would be making a noise at all and didn't turn around. This meant that his first warning that his daughter had entered the room was slightly nervous-sounding voice saying:

"Dad?"

"Uh, what?" he responded, still not looking away from the computer screen he was trying to make sense of.

Trillian was discreetly trying to get his attention, but failing dismally as Zaphod had as much knowledge of subtlety as a cat had of quantum mechanics (which is very little, with the notable exception of Gregory, a small tabby cat belonging Erwin Schrödinger, who rapidly became accustomed to the nature of quantum after being locked in a box and occasionally gassed and poisoned until he finally managed to creep out of the window whilst his owner was having lunch).

Finally, Trillian gave in and took hold of one of his arms, turning him to face her.

"Zaphod!" she hissed. "Behind you!"

Zaphod turned around fully. An oddly familiar-looking teenage girl was standing by the door onto the bridge, looking nervous.

"Either that girl has two heads or I'm really drunk…" he mused.

"Of course she's got two heads, she's your zarking daughter!"

"Are you Zaphod Beeblebrox?" asked the mysterious girl, whilst Zaphod was reeling from the revelation.

"I think so," he hazarded.

"In that case; I'm your daughter. Mirana."

"I have a daughter?" marvelled Zaphod, who hadn't quite taken in Trillian's statement.

"Come on, Zaphod, Arthur just told you!" replied Trillian impatiently.

"He did?" Zaphod looked blank. "You should've said! I never listen to what the monkeyman says."

"I _did_ say. Just now."

"Oh, well."

Trillian sighed heavily. Turning to Mirana, who was still hovering in the doorway, introduced herself.

"I'm Trillian Astra, and this _is_ Zaphod Beeblebrox, although he doesn't seem to know that at the minute."

Mirana nodded slightly, her eyes still on her father. He looked back at her, apparently waiting for something.

"So, what do you want?" he asked eventually.

"What do you mean, what do I want? You're my father!"

"And?"

"And…well…"

There was an awkward silence.

"Hi guys, would you like some tension-relieving music?" offered Eddie cheerily.

"No!" snarled Trillian.

"Okay, okay!" responded Eddie, sounding rather hurt. "How about some calming images?"

"Now is _not_ the time, computer," hissed Trillian.

Eddie sighed and began to hum tinnily to himself.

"Why should I want anything?" demanded Mirana.

"Why else would you have come?" responded Zaphod.

"I don't know, maybe I just wanted to finally meet my father! Don't you care about me at all? You haven't asked me about anything – what I've been doing, my life, my mother, anything! I'm your daughter, for zark's sake!"

There was another pause.

"So, what have you been doing? How's your life? How's your mother?" queried Zaphod, obviously thinking it would be better if he got all of the questions out of the way before he forgot them.

"I'm foreign correspondent for Betelgeuse and the Pleiades for the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

"Really?" Zaphod looked thoughtful. "Hey, can you get me one of those free drinks cards?"

"Is that all you care about? Fine, I'm leaving! _I_ have to go and _work_!' snapped Mirana.

She turned on her heel and stalked out. On the way the door thanked her and wished her a good day. She told it precisely what to do with itself in quite graphic detail and strode through it angrily.

"Hey! I'm President of the Galaxy, kid!" Zaphod called after her.

"I don't care!" shouted Mirana over her shoulder.

"Mirana, come back!" pleaded Trillian. "Mirana!"

Mirana kept walking until she reached the bay where the spacepods were parked. In a few minutes, a hatch in the belly of the _Heart of Gold_ opened and, in the stolen pod, Mirana went back to Megalamore.

**Thanks!**


	4. Chapter 4

Back on the bridge, Trillian was berating Zaphod, who still hadn't entirely grasped the situation.

"Why did you have to do that to her?" she demanded.

"Do what?"

"Just…be you!"

"Who else would I be?" queried Zaphod, genuinely puzzled.

Ignoring him, Trillian added: "Why did you scare her away?"

"Hey, I didn't do anything! She ran out!"

At that moment, Arthur and Fenchurch came through the doors at the end of the bridge, saving Zaphod from the rest of Trillian's admonitions.

"Oh good, _you_ can try and talk to him!" Trillian marched off towards her room.

Arthur watched curiously. "You know, I can sometimes see a very strong resemblance between her and our daughter. What was all that about, anyway?"

Zaphod shrugged, quite a complicated gesture for somebody with three arms.

"No idea. Anyway, I'm going to go and see if I can make this headache into a migraine," he announced, standing up. "See you monkeys later."

He swept dramatically through the closest set of doors.

"I wonder what that was about," said Fenchurch.

"I honestly don't know," replied Arthur. "It _is_ Zaphod, so it could be anything. Probably safest not to ask."

Fenchurch smiled. Arthur looked down at the monitor, which was still showing the planet surface of Megalamore. He was surprisingly sober now – Mirana had that effect on people – and he was able to reflect on the drunken theory he had proposed earlier.

"Fenchurch?"

"Mm?"

"You know the Answer to life, the universe and-"

"Everything?" finished Fenchurch. "Of course; what about it?"

"Ford and I were talking about trying to find the Question earlier."

Arthur explained the plan whilst Fenchurch fished around in her handbag, eventually producing a very battered copy of the Guide.

"Do you think the Guide will have anything to say about it?"

"Haven't we checked that already?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, it's worth a try," decided Arthur.

Fenchurch tapped a code into the Guide and waited for the entry.

"Here it is."

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

_Entry 8,112,487 - The Ultimate Question _

_The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is a source of much debate amongst scholars and almost every other life-form in the Universe. The computer Deep Thought was created to find the answer to the Ultimate Question, which it then did, the answer being forty-two. However, there was a problem, which was this: nobody actually knew what the Question was. There is a theory which states that if the Ultimate Question and the Ultimate Answer are ever known simultaneously in the same universe, then said universe will cease to exist and may well be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states this has already happened.* Yet another theory states that if the Question and the Answer are found at the same time, a wave of happiness, peace and contentment will sweep across the universe, with all the dreadful consequences that would entail. Without war, misery and general depression, nothing would ever happen. It is frankly remarkable how much encroaching deathness focuses minds which otherwise would be rather average._

_*This theory applies to entries 4,185; 8,140,763 and 39,274, based on the fact that there is no reason to waste a perfectly good theory on one entry, and especially not when you have seven entries to extend before lunch._

_End of entry._

"Well, that's strange," said Fenchurch.

"That's just the Guide for you." Arthur looked up at the broad screen on the wall in front of him. "Computer?"

"Hi there!" it chirped.

"What's the probability of finding everyone in the Universe who knows the Answer to the Ultimate Question?"

The computer whirred. Eventually, it declared:

"Very nearly infinite."

"And how long would it take?"

"Only a few thousand years."

Arthur's shoulders slumped.

"Well, there goes that idea. Pass me the Guide, Fenchurch."

She passed it over without a word and Arthur flicked through the index.

"Fancy a holiday?" he asked.

"Where to?"

"I don't know. How about…Bellatrix Gamma?" responded Arthur, typing another code in.

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

_Entry 4,618,915 - Bellatrix Gamma_

_Bellatrix Gamma is a beautiful planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelguese which narrowly escaped the Collapsing Hrung Disaster which destroyed Betelgeuse Seven, and as a result took over the planet's tourism trade, selling "We Escaped The Hrung" merchandise to anybody who stood still for more than five minutes at a time. Due to the astrophysical anomaly which spared them and the booming tourist industry, Bellatrix Gamma is now famous and so mind-bogglingly rich that it holds the record for the most swimming pools per hundred square metres in the galaxy – Salph having been disqualified after the judges discovered that for the competition the locals had merely built walls in the vast and violently blue sea in a vain attempt to be famous for something. _

_End of entry._

"What do you think?" queried Arthur.

"Sounds good."

"And it sounds like it has bars, so Ford should be happy."

At that moment, the ship juddered violently.

"What was that?" said Fenchurch.

"I think somebody just turned the Improbability Drive on, guys," answered Eddie brightly – but Arthur was sure that, just for a minute, he could hear a hint of guilt in the computer's voice.

Behind them, the doors opened and Marvin stomped in.

"Hello, Marvin," sighed Arthur.

"Hello. I just want to inform you that I'm feeling utterly miserable."

"I'd guessed that much."

Fenchurch took the Guide from Arthur.

"We're going on holiday now, Marvin," she declared with forced cheeriness. "That'll be nice, won't it?"

"Will it?" droned Marvin.

Arthur muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath about zarking robots.

"I suppose you want to know why I'm here," added Marvin dully.

"Not particularly."

"Zaphod sent me. He wants you to go to the controls."

"Why?"

Marvin shot him a withering look through his brooding red eyes.

"Do you think he would condescend to tell a mere robot what he sent me for? His exact words were: `Hey, metalmouth, go tell Ford and his monkey to meet me at the control panel.' Here I am, brain the size of a…oh, never mind. You never listen anyway. Nobody ever listens."

Marvin clanked off through the doors, which wisely kept quiet. The last time one of the ship's doors had wished the robot a good day, he had launched into a depressing soliloquy which had driven the door which led to the computer banks to commit suicide.

Arthur looked helplessly at Fenchurch.

"I suppose we'd better go and see what he wants. Computer?" he asked.

A screen lit up in the corner.

"Hi there! This is Eddie, your shipboard computer, and may I say that I am having a really great day! How can I help you?"

"What's the time?"

There was a pause.

"Just that?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"_Yes!_"

"I've got a very nice-"

"Just the time please, computer," repeated Arthur firmly.

Eddie sighed. "Forty-seven minutes and thirty-one seconds past three o'clock in the morning."

"Well, let's go and find out what Zaphod's doing, then…" said Fenchurch resignedly.

Arthur nodded unenthusiastically and followed her to the control panel, where the ex-President of the Galaxy was waiting: one hand clutching a copy of the Guide, one holding a Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster and the other administering industrial strength pain-killers to one of his heads. Ford Prefect was sitting on a chair in the corner, cradling a bottle of Old Janx Spirit in one arm and singing quietly to himself.

"I see Ford hasn't quite got over the effect of Mirana," Arthur commented.

Fenchurch giggled, drawing Zaphod's attention.

"Hey, monkeyman, Fenchurch," he called out. "Look at this!"

They moved over to the screen.

"Look at that, man. We are in a deserted dust bowl-"

"I thought we were above Megalamore," interrupted Arthur.

Zaphod waved him away with his Gargle-Blaster, accidentally spilling some on a row of important-looking buttons.

"Not any more, kid – someone switched on the Improbability Drive-"

"Is _that_ why there's an elk in my room?" interjected Trillian, emerging from a side door. "I was wondering about that."

"Actually, it's a Rigellan Star Moose," corrected Ford. "More horns. Antlers. Whatever they have."

The astrophysicist marched over to join them.

"Well then, who put the Drive on?" she asked. "Arthur?"

"Not me."

"Fenchurch?"

"I don't even know where the button is."

"Ford?"

"I was getting drunk. Am getting drunk. I was busy."

"Zaphod?"

He shrugged, spilling some more Gargle-Blaster.

"Not knowingly."

"You've been drinking those things for hours, you can't be doing _anything_ knowingly." Trillian frowned. "Well, wherever we are-"

"What about me?" demanded a dull voice.

"What about you, Marvin?" she enquired sweetly.

"You didn't ask _me_ whether I'd put the Improbability Drive on," he replied, clanking towards Trillian.

"Did you?"

"No," he droned. "But it would have been nice to have been considered for once. Not that you think of me. I'm just your menial robot. Would you like me to pick a piece of paper up for you? I'm sure I could manage that."

Trillian rolled her eyes and ignored him. Suddenly, a thought struck her.

"Random. Random?" she called.

There was no answer. A frenzied search showed that her daughter was missing, presumed space-borne.


	5. Chapter 5

**I apologise in advance for the number of times I have used the phrase "At that moment" in this chapter. I'm working on cutting down on them, but I'm not doing very well, as you will probably be able to spot…**

In her spacepod, Random fretted. She knew her parents would catch up with her eventually, but she would cross that hyperspace junction when she came to it. For now, she wanted to drink, go to a party and just generally have a really wild time; but not necessarily in that order. Which was why she was hurtling towards the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy buildings on Megalamore beta, where she was almost guaranteed to have all three.

It was at this point that she discovered that, after one of Ford's ill-advised drunken expeditions, there was no fuel left.

"Zark," she swore.

The pod whirled slowly down onto the planet surface; or rather, where the planet surface would have been if somebody hadn't built a huge H-shaped block of offices. Instead, the spacepod ended up landing square in the centre of the 2nd Hippest Place in the Galaxy, as selected by Playbeing readers.

The 1st Hippest Place in the Galaxy was, at that moment, moving backwards and forwards on a huge white ship floating in a mysterious dustbowl.

"I don't get it. Why would the kid switch on the Improbability Drive if she was just going to jump ship?" it asked.

It, incidentally, was Zaphod Beeblebrox's left head, which was slightly soberer than his right, but only just.

"Don't you see? Otherwise we would have gone down to the planet surface-" began Trillian.

"We would?"

"Yes!" She turned on Ford. "Do you recognize these coordinates?"

He struggled to his feet and glanced at the white rows of numbers and letters scrolling across the screen.

"I think…oh, _Zarquon_."

"What?"

"Planet Vogesphere."

"Er…" said Fenchurch nervously.

"Yes?"

"I don't want to alarm you, but I think there's a fleet of Vogon ships coming up to meet us."

"If you didn't want to alarm us, why did you tell us that?" groaned Ford.

"So we could take evasive action?" suggested Fenchurch.

Zaphod sighed, produced his scratched and battered sunglasses from his pocket and slipped them onto his left set of eyes, electing to cover the others with a towel.

"What are you doing?" asked Arthur.

"I don't want to see my life flash before my eyes." He paused. "Except for the bits about Eccentrica Gallumbits."

"Leave it, Arthur. It's probably a good thing, anyway," Trillian sighed. "The last thing we need is Zaphod having an anxiety attack. Hold on tight!"

It was at that moment that the _Heart of Gold_ became a giant glass aubergine, which confined the topics of conversation somewhat.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of anxiety:

_Anxiety is regrettably an all too common emotion throughout the universe. Will I get the bills paid on time? Is my planet about to get demolished by Vogons? Is the Ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast of Traal going to realize that although I have my eyes shut I'm actually still here? These are just a few causes of anxiety in sapient life-forms today._

_The Hoonds of Architrival V deal with anxiety in a very unusual way. Whenever anything which may cause anxiety occurs, a Hoond will run away, hide under a rock and declare that they don't exist, therefore whatever is happening does not apply to or affect them. Remarkably, this approach has worked very well and the Hoonds are one of the happiest life-forms in the Galaxy._

_End of entry._

"Aargh!"

This was the noise which was coming from the giant glass aubergine as it plummeted to the planet's surface, moving faster than the Ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast of Traal on seeing a Vogon's grandmother.

"Zarking fardwarks!" yelled Ford. "What the hell did you do?"

"I turned the Improbability Drive back on," replied Trillian calmly.

"Well turn the bloody thing off again!" he directed.

"I can't! The button's gone!"

"What?"

"In case you hadn't _noticed_, we are now in what appears to be a large space-borne aubergine!" snapped Trillian.

"Yes, I noticed that. At first I'd thought I'd gone mad – again – but…is this glass?" said Arthur.

He tapped the wall thoughtfully and was rewarded with a _plink_ not unlike the sound made by the bowl from the dolphins when flicked.

"Here, try this," suggested Ford, pointing to a large seed on what used to be the control panel.

"Well, I suppose it's worth a try," replied Trillian grimly.

Down below, the Vogons who had been sent up to protect their planet from a suspected attack were puzzled, to say the least. There was absolutely nothing in their manual on what to do when your intended prey turns, somewhat improbably, into a glass aubergine; so they were, quite frankly, stuck.

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz stalked down the moodily-lit corridor of the scout ship in a foul temper, which did nothing to improve his already hideous countenance. He had been demoted to the Vogesphere Defence Squad after the Earth debacle; and now, after too many years chasing insignificant space crafts away, he had his big chance. Unfortunately, a few seconds after the _Heart of Gold_ had been sighted, it had been replaced with a surprisingly large glass vegetable. This understandably made him rather irate.

"Report!" he barked.

"Sir!" The nervous Vogon lieutenant attempted a salute and ended up hitting himself quite hard on the forehead. "The _Heart of Gold_ is now within firing range. But…"

"But _what_?"

"You might want to look at this, sir."

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz stomped over to the dull grey screen on the control panel. The _Heart of Gold_ was shifting shapes, from aubergine to ugly yellow Vogon constructor ship to – the Vogon squinted – some kind of rubber ring, passing briefly through the form of what appeared to be an old blue telephone box.

"What the…oh, I'll zarking get them this time!" he snarled. "Energize the demolition beams."

The Vogon lieutenant coughed politely.

"This is a scout ship, sir, we don't have-" He met Jeltz's unpleasantly beady gaze and gulped. "I'll energize the demolition beams, sir."

He scurried off thankfully in the opposite direction, leaving Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz staring at the screen.

"I'll get you this time, Beeblebrox," he vowed.

"Er…" hazarded Arthur from the floor.

"Shut up, Arthur," interrupted Ford, who was standing with Trillian trying to regain control of the ship. "What do you reckon – are we still on the Improbability Drive, or is the Universe just playing silly buggers again?"

"Hard to say," replied Trillian distantly. "I _think_ we're moving, which would mean that we were on the Drive, but I can't steer the bloody thing, which would suggest that the Universe is being daft."

"Have you tried setting the coordinates?" queried Arthur.

They all looked at the control panel, which at that moment was a rather pleasant walnut coffee table with brass fittings.

"How?" enquired Trillian.

Ford sighed. "Pass. All we can do is hope that the ship turns into something we can control."

At that point, the Rigellan Star Moose trotted up to the bridge and stared at Ford with big, sorrowful eyes. He told it to sod off.

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

_Entry no. 21,980 Entry: The Rigellan Star Moose_

_The Rigellan Star Moose is one of the most important creatures in the history of the planet Rigel, second only to the Cavorting Muntjacs who emigrated from their planet early in their evolutionary cycle in search of pasture and interesting things to cavort at. The Star Moose possesses remarkable eyes, the like of which have never been seen outside Galactic Sector PZ9 Plural J Lambda, where the Flanuellans preside. The eyes of the beast have a certain brown, melting quality which made the first hunter to happen upon them to throw down his spear and vow never to eat meat again. As Rigel is an arid, dusty planet with little vegetation, the hunter lasted around a week before starving to death. The Star Moose had this effect on many different races throughout the planet's history, until one day a brave soul called Untravarkle Q (or Q, as his more devoted followers call him) spake the now sacred words: `Bugger this for a game of soldiers' and killed the creatures. This meant that when Rigel was invaded by the Flanuellans, owners of similarly beautiful eyes, the descendants of Untravarkle simply shot them. The conflict was recognized as one of the shortest inter-planetary __battles in the history of the galaxy, lasting only two hours and three minutes before the invaders gave up and went home. This made the Rigellan Star Moose and Untravarkle's descendants very popular; the fact that the Flanuellans, embittered by the fruitless expedition, declared war on the entire galaxy a few years later is part of a completely different story._

_End of entry._

Arthur struggled to get up, but found himself hindered by a giant elk-like animal with four large antlers. He looked up into the Star Moose's melting brown eyes and immediately felt that, somehow, the Universe was a kinder and much nicer place. Unfortunately, it was at around that moment that the Moose was shot in the side and went down like a tree. The owner of the gun which had fired the fatal shot whooped.

"How good was that, kid?" enthused Zaphod, hefting his Kill-O-Zap gun with his third arm.

"Zaphod, will you _please_ concentrate!" snarled Trillian. "We're trying to get out of a life and death situation here, which will preferably end with the former option!"

"Really? Oh, well, wake me up when it's over, will you?"

He hoisted himself back into the captain's chair (which, inexplicably, was still there and completely unchanged, even though the _Heart of Gold_ was at that moment a riotously coloured double-decker bus) and slid his Joo-Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive sunglasses back on. Trillian rolled her eyes and struggled with the bright yellow steering wheel, trying to get some control over the ship's direction. As she desperately pulled at the steering, it morphed into a sleek black controller of an Angel 3000 Starbuggy.

"Yes!"

She grabbed hold of it and jerked the ship away from the surface of Planet Vogesphere, accelerating dangerously. The Starbuggy shot up out of firing range of the Vogons and into deep space, laser tracers chasing them vainly out of the dustbowl.

**This is a post for Project PULL, set up by Bookaholic711. For more information, visit my profile. Thanks!**


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